Many enterprises are transitioning to a network arrangement in which computing resources of central servers are provided to thin clients (or access devices) at which users are located. A thin client is a computer having a reduced amount of processing and storage resources when compared to full-featured client computers. The computing resources (e.g., software applications, processing resources, storage resources, etc.) that are centralized at one or more central servers can be selectively allocated to a session established by a user at a thin client. Typically, installing and deploying applications and user environments on a central server (or group of central servers) is much more convenient than installing and deploying applications and user environments on hundreds or even thousands of client computers at different sites across an enterprise.
Protocols are provided to enable a user at a thin client to access and share the desktop of a remote computer (e.g., a central server) over a computer network. One such protocol is the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), as provided by Microsoft Corporation, to provide remote display and input capabilities over network connections. Another protocol that can be used is the Remote Graphics Software (RGS) protocol from Hewlett Packard Co. RGS is designed to take full advantage of the computer and graphics resources of a remote computer to deliver interactive remote access from the thin client. The desktop image of the remote computer is transmitted over the network to the thin client, which displays the desktop image locally in a window at the thin client. RGS is designed to provide fast capture, compression, and transmission of a desktop image over a network. RGS also captures user keyboard and mouse inputs at the thin client, and sends the keyboard and mouse inputs to the remote computer for processing, by the operating system of the remote computer, and by applications running on the remote computer. In addition to advanced graphics capabilities, RGS also supports multiple monitors at the thin client to display the desktop image of the remote computer.
Because a thin client can possibly connect to multiple different remote computers, it is often difficult to configure the preferred layout of display(s) associated with a remote computer that is being accessed by a user at the thin client. As a result, a desktop image of the remote computer displayed at a thin client may not have the desired layout. Moreover, for scenarios in which multiple displays are associated with the remote computer, there may be ambiguity in the order of the multiple displays, which may cause the desktop image not to be displayed properly at the monitors of the thin client.